


Loyaute, confiance

by TheFierceBeast



Category: As Meat Loves Salt - Maria McCann
Genre: 17th Century, Angst, M/M, Religious Guilt, Secret love, Shaving, religious angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 14:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2696330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFierceBeast/pseuds/TheFierceBeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scene, at Aunt's house in London, early 1646.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loyaute, confiance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cambusmore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cambusmore/gifts).



"You do not trust me,” I said.

We were sitting at breakfast, Aunt having lately gone out and Becs too, to carry for her, on our promise that we would clear the plates before we went to the print room. A promise merrily delivered, for it was agreed without any exchange of words merely hot looks between us that the press could wait for this luxury of being alone together in the house.

We tarried at table, spending this unaccustomed time frivolously, until I spoke. He looked at me then with mirth and wariness together; a mixture I was a little ashamed to know I was singularly capable of stirring. _Trust_. I had said it partly from devilry, that voice always in my head, whispering that as I did not easily believe in his love, so he must not believe in mine. Because I did not – could not - trust him, I accused him of the same. I think that I pushed my blame upon him, for who could blame Ferris if he were _not_ confident in me? I may have been haunted by the ghosts of blue-eyed glances, of that damned youth Nathan and Richard Parr with his jewelled gaze and flattering, easy manner, but only ghosts they were - unproven and solid as smoke, even as the dry, knowing voice of my evil angel laughed deep within my head. Ferris’s misgivings were real, and etched into the back of his skull as surely as his words were etched inside mine: _violent love eats up what it does love, and is mere appetite._

_Violence_. I wondered if the memory pained him; like scars, or worse. I looked down at my hands, anxious then for his tardy reply and trying to disguise my impatience, and in studying them noted, not for the first time, their size; like grain scoops. To place them on him - him, so slight and golden - in violence was unthinkable wrong, to place them on him at all… I glanced up and he was looking at me, smiling. I tried to hide a shudder, my blood beginning to rise and he said “Come with me,” and he rose and took one of my hands into both of his.

 

We climbed the two flights of stairs like that, he leading me like a lamb. I was slovenly, without boots despite the season and the cold wood felt warm through my stockings after the colder tiles of the kitchen. The bedrooms were dark, even though it was quite morning. We had thought to bring no candle up with us. He went to stand in the grey square of his window and what little light fought ingress found immediately the gold in his cropped hair. Even barely growing back it was already starting to curl; I swallowed around a hot tightness in my throat. Into my head came crowding other days and other windows, the light of flames casting shadows through stained panes, red as blood. _Loyaute_. That wasn’t the issue.

“Trust,” he said, almost in a whisper. He picked something from his washstand and held it out to me. “Of course I trust you, Jacob.”

The grey light from the heavens dimmed next to the grey light of his eyes. I took the razor from him, the horn handle smooth-worn against my fingertips. My lips felt numb, as if I could not speak and for a long moment I could not fathom what he meant, thinking only of cold water an age ago, and struggle beneath my giant’s hands. Then he shrugged off his coat, shirt collar coming open so I saw gooseflesh rise instantly on his neck, the yellow hackles of his beard standing, and I realised.

“We’ll have to-” I went to say _we will have Becs bring some water warmed_ , before remembering her absent.

He shook his head, knowing what I was about. “It will do.”

A hard, pinching frost had whited the window panes overnight. When I had gone to my basin to wash that morning, I’d put my hand through a thin crust of ice, like the glaze of a sweet cake. I thought of digging through that same frost, the ground turned to iron, and my hip twitched with the old pain that I knew must be imagined since so long sleeping away from hard ground: but the memory still had me, unwilling to forfeit this now-accustomed luxury. Memories surfacing, unwanted, like things long-drowned and best kept that way. I didn’t want to put my hands into any more cold water, although dawn had melted the ice from his basin.

I didn’t have to. He leaned forward, splashed his face, and I heard him give a gasp that was almost a laugh, from the chill of the wetting. He looked up at me, grinning, dripping. Trickles ran down into his open shirt front and I followed them with my eyes, their path down his smooth chest, his nipples standing hard from the cold. And I wanted him right then and there, but I knew it for a test.

“There’s soap in the pot,” he said, lowering his lashes and acting his part both coy and whorish, “I have no glass,” (the glass was hanging right beside us on the wall) “you must help me.”

I picked up the brush, feeling clumsy. Knowing the skill in my hands, it made me hate him for a piercing flash that he could always reduce me to self-doubt. I dipped the horsehair into the pot of soft soap and smelled lavender mixed into the fat and ash. I could hardly bear to touch him; I knew not if I could be tender.

He tilted his chin up as I painted the stuff on, along the graceful line of his jaw. His eyes watched me all the while and I realised that I was breathing through my nose. I used my thumb to tip his head further back to get underneath and felt him swallow. It pulled at something in me, a chain of bondage attached invisibly to my loins.

“Turn around.” My own voice sounded hoarse. He turned, easily, and I held him, his back to my chest and was sure he must feel the thundering of my heart beneath my breast; I could hear it in my ears. He leant his head back and it rested just on my shoulder and I needed to close my eyes a moment, to clear a sudden dazzling brightness from them. I felt as if I had taken wine instead of saloop.

He said, quietly, “Jacob?” and I remembered my test. Raising a hand that shook more than I liked, I set to task, scraping away soap and a bright scurf of beard with it. My left hand steadied his head and as he went loose against me slipped to circle his throat and feel the frantic beat of life there. My right hand kept working as if not a part of me, dipping into the basin to rinse, rising to stroke a delicate path across his soaped cheek. He pressed back against me and I knew he must feel how my blood was up; for his quickened. And I thought how fragile he was, how easy it would be to tighten my fingers about his fluttering throat and squeeze out that flicker of life there; how easy to let slip the blade and claim accident. So compelling to me was the thought of his blood, warm and wet across my fingers, that I let me drift away on fancy for a moment and almost believed it true; only a small sound passing my own lips brought me back to myself. He was pushing backwards, harder, the swell of his arse soft against me. My reliable hands, working on their own, had almost finished their job. I was glad for only the sight of his yellow hair for I knew that, should I see his eyes, I’d witness my own guilty thoughts writ clearly there; for he surely knew as well as I that if I chose I could murder him where he stood with barely a flick of my wrist.

I finished and he stooped again to swill his face. I handed him the cloth and he turned, patting down the flushed pink of his smooth cheeks. Silent, but for his knowing eyes. _Deliver me from temptation, O Lord_. He set the cloth aside, draped on the edge of the basin so that one end slipped by accident in and as he dropped to his knees, pulling open my clothes and taking me into his hot mouth, I watched the cloth instead, the slow climb of dirtied soapy water soaking up the weave, until my fingers tightened in his curls so hard that he cried out at the same moment as I.

His lips were very red when he stood and looked saucily at me, his pink tongue passing over them. “You see. That is not the action of one who does not trust, is it now?” he said and he reached out and placed his palms against my chest as if checking that my heart still beat now his head no longer lay there. It was only then that I noticed, staining the white linen at his shirt-band, the tiniest fleck of blood; a little red stain, spreading even as I watched it. I placed my hands either side of his head, cradled his face (tilting up into my touch, his eyelids slipping closed and lips parting) in my palms. I covered the blooming bloody spot with one thumb. I pressed my open mouth to his.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Yuletider, I really hope this is what you wanted, and that you enjoy it - sorry it's so short, and it's a little bit angsty - but I think quite happy for Jacob! Happy Yuletide.


End file.
